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1Breaking the Box: NewDesigns for Professional

Learning in Schools

Every piece of architecture has to be secured in a landscape.Especially if there is a new direction–there must be a land-scape strategy that positions it.1

INTRODUCTION

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Frank Lloyd Wright, an aspiringyoung architect, rejected the formality and dominant design principlesof American architecture. During the next 60 years,his prairie school designs harmonizing space, land-scape, and people’s lives transformed 20th centuryarchitecture. Many of his buildings, including theGuggenheim, Taliesin, and Fallingwater are amongthe most recognizable structures in the world.2

However, his most profound impact was on a morefamiliar structure, the typical American home. Closeyour eyes for a moment and imagine a 19th centuryVictorian home. Perhaps you see a tall, two-storyhouse with a steep roof, sharply pointed gables, and aturret. The house’s imposing size and height are

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squeezed on to a small city lot resembling a middle-aged man forced intotight blue jeans—spilling over the edges. Victorian rectitude is emphasizedby the structure’s crisp lines and symmetry in tall rectangular windows. Ina few cases, however, 19th century uprightness gives way to gingerbreadgables and garish colors, the neighborhood’s painted ladies.

Now let us look at this structure through Wright’s eyes and imagina-tion. First, he believed this house at the turn of the last century reflectedmore the formality of Victorian architecture than it did the realities of howpeople actually lived. He forcefully argued that the Victorian house, “liedabout everything. It had no sense of unity at all nor any such sense of spaceas should belong to a free people. . . . It began somewhere way down in thewet and ended as high up as it could get in the high and narrow. . . . This‘house’ was a bedeviled box with a fussy lid; a complex box that had to becut up by all kinds of holes made in it to let in light and air, with an espe-cially ugly hole to go in and come out of.”3 He chafed at the boxlike roomsthat confined interior space, walled out the natural environment, andlimited the flow of movement and daily living.

When I first read this description, I was struck by how accurately itdescribed the “bedeviled box” of teacher professional development at thebeginning of a new century. Like the Victorian house a hundred yearsearlier, the major design features of contemporary teacher professionaldevelopment reflect a legacy of teacher isolation, norms of privacy, frag-mentation, and incoherence with far too little attention paid to the currentrealities of teachers’ work and daily lives in schools. Though I have no illu-sions about comparing myself with America’s most famous architect, Iwould argue that teacher professional development needs a similar trans-formation that asks teachers to think about their learning and its connectionsto their primary work, teaching children. This book is about a new architec-ture for creating learning spaces that provide teachers and administratorsopportunities to learn, grow, and improve their professional practice.

The purpose of this book is to propose a set of design principles forexpanding and legitimizing learning opportunities for teachers and otherprofessional educators in and beyond schools. Using the metaphor ofarchitecture, the book proposes new designs for creating learning spacesfor professional educators that challenge the boundaries, forms, and pur-poses of traditional design, delivery, content, and outcomes of professionaldevelopment. Building on empirical research and exemplary practices, thebook provides examples of professional learning expressed in this newarchitecture in its most natural setting—in schools and classrooms. Formaland informal professional learning beyond the school are also included inthe landscape of professional learning. Like Wright’s prairie style homesfeaturing natural materials and using the natural contours of surroundinglandscapes, I believe the new architecture for professional developmentmust similarly use familiar materials and shapes that fit naturally into thelandscape of teachers’ and administrators’ daily work.

4 Redesigning Professional Learning for Educators


THINKING OUTSIDE AND BEYOND THE BOX

When confronted with seemingly intractable problems, we often ask peopleto think outside of the box—beyond familiar structures, common solu-tions, and generally accepted notions of what is possible and what is not.Novel ideas and unforeseen possibilities often emerge from such an activ-ity. Any new ideas, however, will be put back into the original box withsome modest adjustments. Another way of thinking about this generativeprocess is simply to do away with the box and its inherent limitations. Thenovel ideas then become catalysts for transformation. Like the reconcep-tualized spaces in Wright’s creations, I invite you to think beyond the tra-ditional box of staff development and to consider radically transformingprofessional learning spaces for teachers and administrators. My hope isthat this book will engage you in ways that help you think about profes-sional development in new ways, not simply ones that fit familiar teacherroutines and current school structures. The new architecture breaks theprofessional development box by challenging the traditional design, deliv-ery, content, context, and outcomes of teacher professional development.

UTILITAS, FIRMITAS, AND VENUSTAS:ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS OF ARCHITECTURE

In one of the most readable books on architecture that I have encountered,ABC of Architecture, James O’Gorman4 cites the classic work of an ancientRoman architect and engineer, Vitruvius, whom he credits for the mostsuccinct and encompassing definition of architecture ever written.Vitruvius’s definition describes three essential components of architec-ture—function (utilitas), structure (firmitas), and beauty (venustas). InFigure 1.1 the three components are displayed as corners of an equilateraltriangle. “Each is discrete, yet all combine to shape a larger whole.”5

Professional development is a human endeavor, like architecture, thatbrings the three components together. Let us look more closely athow these components are expressed in the architecture of professionaldevelopment.

Function (Utilitas)

The first corner of the triangle represents the function of professionaldevelopment. One of the major responsibilities of any architect is to listenand respond to the needs, interests, and priorities of clients. In the area ofprofessional development, this means that the design, delivery, andintended outcomes of learning activities are to serve the interest of clients.Who are the clients of professional development? Whose interests arebeing served? Who benefits from professional development in schools?

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The most obvious clients of professional development are teachers andprincipals. After all, they are the participants in the learning activities.Various professional development programs and strategies are designedto meet educators’ needs, helping them learn and grow as people andprofessionals with the expressed intention of strengthening their profes-sional practice and its outcomes. Though teachers and administratorsare the major participants, they are not the only beneficiaries (clients).Professional development is also intended to improve student learningoutcomes, improve the quality of educators’ work life, facilitate organiza-tional change, support local school improvement efforts as well as broadereducational reform, contribute to community building, and last, enhancethe quality and impact of the professions of teaching and administration.When we consider the function of professional development in schools,serving client interests includes a wide range of activities with multiplebeneficiaries.

Structure (Firmitas)

The second corner of the architecture of professional developmenttriangle is structure. In the area of professional development, structurerefers to the structural and material components that are brought togetherto meet the needs of clients. This includes the elements of design, delivery,and content of learning opportunities. Structures are the concrete andvisible dimensions of professional development experiences that we create


Architecture

of

Professional Development

Beauty (Venustas)

Function(Utilitas)

(client needs, interests, & priorities)

Structure(Firmitas)

(design, delivery, & content)

Figure 1.1 The Architecture of Professional Development: EssentialComponents


to address the interests of teachers, administrators, and schools, includinglearning experiences “in,” “at,” “outside,” and “beyond” work, as well asthe organizational processes and systems that support them.

The relationship of interdependence between professional develop-ment structures and function is obvious, but nonetheless, often ignored.For instance, planning and implementing staff development activitiesmay be more the result of convenience and organizational expediency thanbased on the critical needs and interests of staff. When professional develop-ment structures emerge without clear purpose and priorities that meet theneeds and interests of teachers and administrators, the result is frag-mented and faddish activities masquerading as professional learning.Consequently, there is little wonder why many educators remain wary,cynical, and frustrated by traditional inservice and staff developmentactivities that are designed and implemented without their input.

Beauty (Venustas)

The third corner of the architecture of professional development trian-gle is beauty. When I first began to reflect on this essential element in archi-tecture, I thought about the common admonition: beware of makingarguments that rely on metaphors. Up to this point, the metaphor of archi-tecture has been a friendly linguistic, conceptual companion that hashelped me make my case for rethinking and recreating professional devel-opment in education. After all, metaphors are powerful cognitive andlinguistics devices. Still, we are reminded that metaphors are suggestivecomparisons, not exact copies. I believe we need to consider the notion ofaesthetics in professional development further.

The element of beauty seems so apparent in such architectural wondersas the Taj Mahal, Taliesin, the Sydney Opera House, and the Alhambra.6

Yet, it seems less obvious in the context of professional learning. I havesome questions regarding the applicability of beauty to the architecture ofprofessional development:

• What are the aesthetic elements in the architecture of professionaldevelopment?

• Is beauty in the architecture of professional development solely inthe “eye of the beholder”?

• If beauty is an essential component in architecture, why has so littleattention been given to aesthetics of professional development?

In professional development, beauty comes from the artistic arrange-ment and use of materials and systems to create learning spaces that engageteachers and administrators in learning opportunities that meet their needsand change them as people and professionals. “Beauty, architectural beauty,is the hoped-for result of appropriate planning and sturdy structure.”7

Creating new designs for professional learning for educators isanchored in these same essential architectural components. The work of

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architects for professional development is to create artful designs forlearning (venustas) with structural integrity (firmitas) that appropriatelymeet the needs of teachers, administrators, and the students and commu-nities they serve (utilitas).

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT DESIGN THEMES

In a tour of Taliesin, home to Frank Lloyd Wright’s design studio and prairieschool of architecture in Spring Green, Wisconsin, tour guides often pointout a small glass case. In it are children’s blocks—geometric shapes—squares, rectangles, cylinders, and triangles—that Wright played with as achild. Were these blocks only artifacts from Wright’s 19th century childhood,they would be interesting but hardly noteworthy. What makes them animportant exhibit is their relationship to his work as an architect. These basicgeometric shapes reappear in new and oftentimes unexpected ways in someof his most famous buildings. From child’s play to creative genius, Wrightrelied on familiar, ordinary shapes. These shapes became design themes,and despite their ordinariness, his creativity transformed these shapes intodistinctive signatures on such architectural masterpieces as the Guggenheimin New York City, Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pennsylvania, and theS.C. Johnson & Son Administration Building in Racine, Wisconsin. Like thegeometric shapes in Wright’s buildings, the new architecture for profes-sional development in education has design themes that draw on familiarand ordinary features, but ones used in different and novel ways. There aresix design themes in the new architecture for professional development.


Design Theme One• Professional development is about learning.

Design Theme Two• Professional development is work.

Design Theme Three• Professional expertise is a journey not a credential.

Design Theme Four• Opportunities for professional learning and improved practice are

unbounded.

Design Theme Five• Student learning, professional development, and organizational

mission are intimately related.

Design Theme Six• Professional development is about people, not programs.


Design Theme One—ProfessionalDevelopment Is About Learning

It is ironic that schools, ostensibly organized to nurture and supportstudent intellectual, moral, and social development, are often sterile, attimes even hostile, environments for professional learning. Interestingly,the things we know and practice related to children’s learning and devel-opment are often missing when it comes to the design, delivery, andassessment of professional development in schools. Though learning canoccur even under adverse conditions, we know from research and experi-ence that individual learning is maximized when there is an optimal mixof instructional, curricular, developmental, and environmental factorsorganized in ways that stimulate and support the learner.

As a design theme, recognizing that professional development is aboutlearning keeps the focus on the learner. Too often the emphasis in profes-sional development is on the activity (a workshop, a speaker, or a conference)and not on the learner’s needs. Keeping the focus on learning principles, let’sdraw on our wealth of professional knowledge about learning.

For example, we know that:

Now replace the word “learner” with teacher or with principal. Arethese principles of learning evident in the design and delivery of profes-sional learning in your school? In what ways do these fundamental under-standings of human cognition influence how you think about professionaldevelopment in your school? Of course, we know much more than thesefour bulleted items about human cognition. My point here is that wesimply need to apply what we know about learning to professional devel-opment in schools. The principles are familiar ones. Using these funda-mental principles of learning, we can configure new ways that supportprofessional learning, growth, and improved practice—the essence of aprofessional learning community.

Design Theme Two—Professional Development Is Work

The fact that teachers and principals are learners and continue to bethroughout their careers is not new. Highly skilled educators have longbeen involved in summer institutes, inservice training, graduate degree

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• Learners at different stages of development have different needs.• Learners have different learning style preferences that affect their

learning.• Learners’ prior knowledge greatly influences their learning.• Learners’ motivation and opportunities for reflection are critical to

learning.


programs, and countless other formal and informal activities to gain newknowledge and skills to improve their practice. What is new is theincreased emphasis being placed on professional development and itslinks to school improvement, organizational development, and enhancedstudent learning. Traditionally, professional development has been rele-gated to after-school meetings, summers, and off-work hours. Researchers,policy makers, and practitioners now recognize that professional develop-ment cannot be an add-on to the end of an already busy workday, nor canit be just an option for those who are interested. Opportunities to learn arenot organizational frills and they should not be subjected to the whimsof capricious budget cutting exercises. Ongoing professional learningmust be a dimension of professional work embedded in daily routines andorganizational culture.8 For this to happen in schools, professionaldevelopment must be seen as legitimate work, essential to professionalexpertise and exemplary practice. The challenge is to provide the struc-tures, processes, and resources during educators’ workdays so that theycan learn and reflect on what they have learned in terms of their practice.

Design Theme Three—ProfessionalExpertise Is a Journey Not a Credential

At one time in our educational history, teachers could simply completetheir training programs, receive their licenses, and practice until theydecided to move on or retire. There were few, if any, formal requirementsbeyond initial preservice preparation. Ease of entry, and minimal licensingrequirements into teaching and school administration, suggested tosome that education was a convenient fallback for employment if otheropportunities did not work out. Like the one-room schoolhouse and film-strip projector, those days are gone. Teaching and school leadership arecomplex, demanding jobs. Preservice training, clinical experiences, andprobationary licenses are the beginning phases of the professional social-ization journey in teaching and school leadership. In many states, newlicense requirements for teachers and principals recognize that beginningeducators are novices and, therefore, need additional knowledge and skilldevelopment under structured and supportive environments before theycan be granted advanced licenses to practice. During this probationaryperiod, employing school districts and state licensing authorities requirepractitioners to design plans for professional growth and developmentwith clear goals and documented evidence of professional competencies.License renewal also requires a plan for ongoing professional growth anddevelopment. The central message regarding the career licensing require-ments for teachers and administrators is clear. This is a journey thatrequires commitment to high standards of practice and ongoing profes-sional development.



Design Theme Four—Opportunities forProfessional Learning That Informs Practice Are Unbounded

Recently, I spent a day at a Sami (Laplander) camp in far northernSweden. My hosts and I traveled miles by snowmobile to a remote wintercamp where we lassoed reindeer, competed in sled races, and feasted onfire-roasted reindeer, bread, and strong coffee under a tent of deerskins.The day was full of adventure, new experiences, and vivid images. What Idid not know at the time was the impact these experiences would have onmy professional thinking and practice. No, I have not incorporated rein-deer roasting or races into my teaching. In fact, it is likely my students arequite unaware of my experiences with the Sami. Nevertheless, I believe itwas a transformative learning experience. I had been introduced to aunique culture with a worldview different from my own. My assumptionsand understandings about life and professional work in the modern worldhad been challenged; the dissonance created a tension that stretched mythinking and my being.

As a design principle, lived experiences transformed into professionallearning provide elements of surprise and serendipity that fire the mind,heart, and soul. Beyond the box of traditional professional developmentare limitless possibilities for enriching, energizing, and informing educa-tors’ professional thinking and work. This is not an argument for doingaway with such formal learning as staff development, training, and othertraditional forms of professional development. It is, however, one thatnurtures and affirms learning opportunities in teachers’ and principals’lives beyond classrooms and schools.

Design Theme Five—Student Learning, ProfessionalDevelopment, and Organizational Mission Are Intimately Related

One of the unanticipated consequences of specialization in complexorganizations such as schools is fragmentation and a sense of disconnec-tion. Schools and the people in them are susceptible to silos of separationand specialization. Much of this is a legacy of the organizing principles ofindustrial America. During the 19th century, as public schools grew expo-nentially in numbers and with more diverse student populations, educa-tional leaders and policy makers looked to other societal sectors—mining,railroads, manufacturing industries, and the military—for ideas to orga-nize, administer, and operate schools.9 The major organizing principles ofindustrial America—specialization, maximization, centralization, concen-tration, and standardization—became familiar ones to educators much thesame as total quality management ideas are common in today’s schools.10

Schools had not always been organized around such principles. Educatorspurposely rethought the organization and operation of schools in newways to meet new social and economic realities. Though it will not be easy,

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new realities and challenges again demand new ways of thinking aboutschools and the professionals who work in them. I believe this will beaccomplished by rethinking schools and professional work in ways thatlink purpose, people, and possibilities for human growth and develop-ment into a new whole—a professional learning community. This meansthinking in systemic, integrative ways. What is important is seeing theinterdependence among student learning, professional development, andorganizational purposes. There are, to be sure, important distinctionsamong these areas, but when combined, they have enormous organiza-tional and human generative power and synergy.

Design Theme Six—ProfessionalDevelopment Is About People, Not Programs

The ancient Chinese statesperson, Guan Zhong, captured the essenceof this design theme when he described the long view of development inhis country: “The plan for a year is growing grains. The plan for a decadeis planting trees. And, the plan for life is nurturing people.” The new archi-tecture of professional development is fundamentally about people andtheir essential humanity. While the technical, cultural, and structuraldimensions of professional development are critical to success, the forma-tion of educators’ sense of identity and moral purpose is more than anaccumulation of technical skills and professional competencies. As ParkerPalmer reminds us, understanding the inner landscapes of teachers anddiscovering who they are as people and professionals are critical to sup-porting their development. “To chart that landscape fully, three importantpaths must be taken—intellectual, emotional, and spiritual—and none canbe ignored. Reduce teaching to intellect, and it becomes a cold abstraction;reduce it to emotions, and it becomes narcissistic; reduce it to the spiritual,and it loses its anchor to the world. Intellect, emotion, and spirit dependon one another for wholeness.”11 Teachers and administrators also dependon one another for wholeness as they individually and collectivelydevelop their capacities for learning and for strengthening their profes-sional practice.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO REDESIGNPROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN SCHOOLS?

There are at least five major reasons to redesign professional developmentin education.

Educator Work Is Complex and Demanding. The work of teachers and princi-pals has become increasingly more complex and more demanding andrequires greater expertise than at any time in the history of public education.



Consistent calls for teacher professional development is not an indictmentof teacher professionalism, but rather recognition that the academic andsocial needs of today’s children, especially those in impoverished ruraland urban settings, require highly skilled teachers and principals withnew knowledge, skills, and professional competencies. In 1940, for exam-ple, when teachers were asked to list major threats to their school commu-nity, they listed such transgressions as gum chewing, littering, breaking inline, violating dress codes, talking too loudly, and running in the halls.By the 1990s, teachers were confronted with new challenges includingstudent suicide, assault, robbery, rape, premature pregnancy, and sub-stance abuse.12 Poverty, violence, child abuse and neglect, drugs, andhomelessness are serious conditions that currently affect the nature ofteachers’ and principals’ daily work. While student deportment remainsan important issue, the severity of threat and the knowledge and skillsteachers and principals need to deal effectively with students are dramati-cally different. Teaching has always been a demanding profession.However, the context of teachers’ and principals’ work today is clearlyquite different from that found in 1940.

Workshops, guest speakers, various inservice meetings, and advanceddegrees have been the primary ways educators have gained new knowl-edge to improve their practice. There is value to such activities. However,the fact that teachers and principals remain passive recipients and are pro-vided only limited opportunities to reflect upon new information does littleto provide them with the expert knowledge and skills to deal effectivelywith the range of problems and the educational needs of today’s students.In addition to having command of their subject matter, teachers need tohave a repertoire of teaching skills to work with students who may havemultiple disabilities, be disaffected, or become violent. In addition, theinfusion of new information technologies in schools compounds the needfor increased emphasis on teacher learning and development. The natureand complexity of teaching requires more than a traditional “sit and get”inservice program carried out at the end of a school day.

Professional Development and School Improvement: An Emerging Consensus. Asecond major reason to redesign professional development is that reformreports and policy initiatives indicate that there is an emerging consensusthat professional development is an important component of schoolimprovement and educational reform more broadly. A review of policyand reform documents over the past decade indicates that one of the mostpowerful ways to enhance learning opportunities and outcomes for allchildren in public education is to improve the quality and expertise ofteachers in our nation’s classrooms. See, for example, ProfessionalDevelopment Guidelines, AFT, 1995; Teaching as the Learning Profession:Handbook of Policy and Practice, Darling-Hammond and Sykes, 1999; WhatMatters Most: Teaching for America’s Future, NCTAF, 1996.13 As documented

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in the reports cited, the focus of school improvementinitiatives and reform efforts is on higher studentachievement.

Success in these areas is inextricably linked to thequality and accessibility of ongoing, learning opportu-nities for teachers and principals. Creating accessand opportunity is the force shaping a new architecturefor professional development in schools. Researchand reports of exemplary practice suggest commoncharacteristics of effective professional development forteachers and principals.

New Licensing Regulations. Recognizing the importance of professional devel-opment to school improvement and student achievement is necessary butnot sufficient. A new architecture, one beyond the traditional professionaldevelopment box, will create learning spaces that recognize the complexitiesand realities of teachers’ and principals’ work lives while simultaneouslyattending to their needs for ongoing growth and development thatstrengthen their practice. New designs for professional learning must alsorecognize the continuum of professional preparation and practice movingfrom novice to expert. Increasingly, state licensing boards are differentiatingamong professional licenses for educators by granting probationary licensesfor beginning teachers and principals, professional licenses for career educa-tors, and advanced licenses for candidates who demonstrate and documentexpert knowledge and competence. Professional development plans areimportant components of these licenses. Board certification by the NationalBoard of Professional Teaching Standards, the National Association ofSchool Psychologists, and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Associa-tion are examples of these types of professional credentials.14


Effective professional development:• Is continuous.• Links student learning to educator needs and school goals.• Is school-based and job-embedded.• Is supported with resources—time, money, processes, and

structures to ensure success.• Integrates and focuses multiple innovations on student learning and

success.• Incorporates multiple data sources to plan, implement, and evaluate

student learning and professional practices.• Involves teachers and principals in the identification and design of

learning experiences to meet individual and collective needs.

www.nsdc.org/library/NSDCPlan.html;www.npeat.org;www.nfie.org/news.htm

Site Visits


The license renewal process for educators has undergone similarchanges. Many states now require teachers and administrators to maintainand submit for license renewal a professional development plan thatdocuments professional growth and its link to improved practice.Traditionally, teachers and administrators have completed certificationprograms in their specialties and then applied to the state for a license topractice. Typically, every five years they applied for a license renewal andpaid the required fees. Though professional development has always beenan implicit goal for career advancement and license renewal, today’slicensing and renewal processes make professional development anexplicit component of licensure.15 No longer can teachers and administra-tors simply take six credits every five years, regardless of their connectionto their work, and mail the documentation into the state for licenserenewal. Graduate credits at colleges and universities are importantopportunities to gain professional knowledge and skills, but the case forrelevance to one’s practice and professional growth plans needs to bemade. In addition, new licensing requirements legitimize a wide variety ofprofessional development opportunities beyond traditional courses andgraduate credits. These may include such activities as study groups, atten-dance at professional conferences as participants and presenters, actionresearch projects, mentoring, and curriculum work teams.16

Accountability for Education Outcomes. A fundamental shift in the assessmentof educational quality in the United States is also an important reason forredesigning professional development. Educational outcomes have alwaysbeen important to teachers and principals. For many years, the way inwhich policy makers and practitioners traditionally examined educationalquality was by evaluating the nature and quality of inputs into the educa-tional system. This included such measures as the dollars spent per pupil,the breadth and depth of curricular offerings, the degree level and field ofprofessional staff, physical space and equipment, and the ratio of staff tostudents. There is a large body of research that examines the link betweenthe quality of inputs and educational outcomes.17 Notwithstanding theimportance of inputs to student success, the demand for greater account-ability for student learning outcomes has become the new organizer for theassessment of educational quality. Responding to public demands andexercising political muscle, state legislatures across the nation, and morerecently the federal government, mandated new standards holding dis-tricts, schools, administrators, and teachers accountable for “what studentsshould know and be able to do,” the new catch-phrase of the standardsmovement. Standards-based curricula, high stakes tests, and educationalreport cards are the new realities for the delivery and assessment of educa-tional quality.

New regulatory requirements have intensified change initiativesacross some 15,000 local school districts resulting in staff developmentand inservice training focusing their resources on compliance with new

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standards. Millions of dollars and countless hours invested by schooldistricts are testament to the fundamental shift in the evaluation of educa-tional quality centered on explicit student learning outcomes. Someeducators remain skeptical arguing that the diversion of time, money, andenergy centered on compliance with new state standards will have onlylimited impact on student learning outcomes. District and school compli-ance with standards is one thing; changing teachers’ knowledge, beliefs,and instructional practices in classrooms is quite another.

Problems and Possibilities: Paradoxes in Professional Development. Despite theoverwhelming consensus that professional development is critical toschool improvement, there is an interesting paradox. On the one hand,there are numerous, perhaps inflated, promises from enthusiasts suggest-ing that professional development has remarkable restorative powers torevitalize teaching, improve instruction, transform schools, break the moldof traditional classroom practices, raise student achievement, addressissues of inequality and racism, empower teachers, and redesign the cur-riculum and teachers’ work. In contrast, there is a litany of problems thatpractitioners and scholars point out. The record indicates that staff devel-opment and inservice training in schools suffer from a number of limita-tions, including that they: (a) tend to be piecemeal, fragmented, andincoherent; (b) do little to change instructional practices; (c) generally arenot integrated into teachers’ daily work; (d) are too narrow in focus; (e) arepoorly evaluated; (f) are not conceptually or programmatically linked topreservice teacher preparation; and (g) generally fail to provide adequatefollow-up resources and support to sustain changes in teachers’ practicesand/or school structures. At this point you might want to throw up yourhands in the proverbial gesture of “What’s the use!” As Charles Handyreminds us, “Paradoxes are the like the weather, something to be livedwith not solved, the worst mitigated, the best enjoyed and used as clues tothe way forward.”18 My own sense of these contradictions is that they arethe seedbed of tension that feeds creativity and forces us to find new waysto think about persistent problems and dilemmas surrounding educators’learning and professional practice. The contradictory streams of promisesand problems provide an opportunity to rethink and redesign teacher andadministrator learning in schools creating a new architecture for profes-sional development in education.

CHANGING THE PARADIGM OFPROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

At first, it is likely that some of the new designs for professional develop-ment in schools may look as strangely out of place as did some of Wright’sprairie style homes set among 19th century traditional houses.



Redesigning professional development into a new architecture forcareer-long growth and development in schools will not be easy. Everyoneis in favor of improvement in professional development; it is changingprofessional development as they know it that bothers them. Changing theparadigm requires rethinking, restructuring, and reculturing professionaldevelopment.

Change in any complex system requires vision, requisite knowledgeand skills, incentives, resources, and an action plan to bring it about.19

Changing the paradigm of professional development requires a vision ofwhere we want to be and what it should look like. Once we articulate avision we can analyze the gap between where we are and where we wantto be. Bridging the gap requires such things as new information, technolo-gies, and skills. Because many people will be naturally hesitant aboutdramatic changes in professional development opportunities in schools, aset of incentives appropriate to the vision and to individual and organiza-tional needs must be in place. This may include adjustments or alterna-tives to the current salary schedules driven by credits and years ofexperience. The new architecture for professional development in schoolswill require two major resources—time and money. External fundsthrough grants, newly budgeted money, and reallocated dollars areprimary financial resources. Redesigning time in ways that support thelearning community for students and staff is also a critical resource.Finally, we need an action plan to move us successfully from where we areto where we want to be. The plan charts the course, coordinates the logis-tics, and evaluates progress toward our goal along the way. Each of thesecomponents will be is described in greater detail in subsequent chapters.

SITE VISITS

www.ncrel.org/pd/The North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL) site highlights research

and promising practices in professional development.www.ed.gov/inits/teachers/eisenhower/On-line version of Designing Effective Professional Development: Lessons from the

Eisenhower Program.www.nrpdc.org:8080/nrpdc/The Northeast Regional Professional Development Center (Region 8) is one of 12 centers

across Ohio organized to provide long-term, ongoing, and meaningful professionaldevelopment for all K-12 educators.

www.ascd.org/The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development Web site features calendars

of activities and resources for professional development.www.nsdc.org/The National Staff Development Council Web site offers listings of professional develop-

ment activities, resources, and current activities.

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SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS

Corcoran, T. C. (1995). Transforming professional development for teachers: A guidefor state policymakers. Washington, DC: National Governors Association.

Guskey, T. R., & Huberman, M. (1995). Professional development in education:New paradigms and practices. New York: Teachers College Press.

Hassel, E. (1999). Professional development: Learning from the best. Oak Brook, IL:North Central Regional Educational Laboratory.

National Foundation for Improvement in Education. (1996). Teachers take charge oftheir learning. Washington, DC: Author.

National Staff Development Council. (1995). Standards for staff development:(Elementary School; Middle School; and High School Editions). Oxford, OH:Author.

Sparks, D., & Hirsch, S. (1997). A new vision for staff development. Reston, VA:Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

U.S. Department of Education. (1999). Designing effective professional development:Lessons from the Eisenhower Program. Washington, DC: Author.

NOTES

1. Shepheard, P. (1995). What is architecture? An essay on landscapes, buildings,and machines. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

2. Retrieved July 1, 2000, from www.taliesinpreservation.org and www.wpconline.org/fallingwaterhome.htm

3. Truth against the world: Frank Lloyd Wright speaks for an organic architecture.Washington, DC: Preservation Press, National Trust for Historic Preservation.

4. O’Gorman, J. F. (1998). ABC of architecture. Philadelphia: University ofPennsylvania Press, 16.

5. Ibid., 12.

6. Retrieved July 1, 2000, from www.rubens.anu.edu.au/studentprojects/tajmahal/actualtomb.html for Taj Mahal; www.taliesinpreservation.org forTaliesin; www.soh.nsw.gov.au/virtual_tour/vrtour.html for Sydney OperaHouse; www.red2000.com/spain/granada/1photo.html for Alhambra.

7. O’Gorman., 4

8. Bredeson, P. V. (2000). Teacher learning as work and at work: Exploring thecontent and context of teacher professional development. Journal of In-ServiceEducation, 26(1), 63–72.

9. Bredeson, P. V. (1988). Perspectives on schools: Metaphors and manage-ment in education. Journal of Educational Administration, 29(3), 293–310.

10. Toffler, A. (1970). Future shock. New York: Bantam Books.

11. Palmer, P. (1998). The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of ateacher’s life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 4.



12. Glazer, S. (1992, September 11). Can anything be done to curb the growingviolence? Congressional Quarterly Researcher. Retrieved July 1, 2002, fromhttp://library.cqlibrary.com [1992, September 11]

13. See the following resources. Darling-Hammond, L., & Sykes, G. (1999).Teaching as the learning profession: Handbook of policy and practice. San Francisco:Jossey-Bass. NCTAF (1996). What matters most: Teaching for America’s future.New York: National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. Principlesfor professional development: AFT guidelines for creating professional development pro-grams that make a difference Retrieved July 1, 2002, from www.aft.org/edissues/downloads/ppd.pdf

14. Retrieved July 1, 2002, from www.nbpts.org; www.nasponline.org/index2.html; and www.asha.org

15. Retrieved July 1, 2002, from www.dpi.wi.us

16. Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction PI 34 regulations for licensure.

17. An excellent review of current research can be found in: Monk, D. H., &Plecki, M. L. (1999). Generating and managing resources of school improvement.In J. Murphy & K. Seashore Louis (Eds.), Handbook of research on educational admini-stration. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

18. Handy, C. (1994). The age of paradox. Boston: Harvard Business SchoolPress.

19. See “Factors in managing complex change” Knoster (1991) and Ambrose(1987). Retrieved July 1, 2002, from www.ctassets.org/pdf/reading/factorsmngng.pdf

19Breaking the Box


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